Sleep and PDA

My PDA son, Cooper, barely slept as an infant. He never napped. I resorted to co-sleeping soon after he was born, yet he would only sleep in 10-20 minute spurts. I would startle awake all night, hearing his screams as soon as his eyes popped open.

Eventually, to survive, my husband and I started sleeping in shifts. We took turns walking Cooper up and down the hall of our old apartment building in Washington D.C., bouncing his body vigorously. I remember looking at his eyes and thinking he looked like a deer in headlights.

Like my son, many PDA children and teens (and therefore their parents), often struggle with sleep even from infancy.

It can look like:

• Sleep avoidance and refusal
• Constant waking during the night
• Non-24-hour sleep cycles
• Waking too early for a full night’s sleep regardless of how tired they are
• Needing to co-sleep regardless of age (btw - there is nothing wrong with this, it just isn’t typical when the children get as old as 10-18 years old).

These struggles make sense from a brain science and nervous system perspective.

Whenever our amygdala (the brain’s threat detector) perceives danger, it tells our nervous system: Hey! Be alert, don’t let your guard down, tense your muscles, increase your heart rate and get ready to run away or fight for your life!

This physiological state is obviously not conducive for our bodies to drift off into a peaceful slumber.

Yet as much as this makes sense to me now, I never would have considered this nervous system logic as a young mother. I couldn’t see any “threat” to my infant son.

I was an attentive mom, breastfed on command, (unsuccessfully) co-slept, and spent 24/7 with him wrapped to my body. Together we moved through quiet, low-lit rooms, full of what I thought was gentle caregiving, rather than danger and predators.

Although there may not be ‘literal’ predators during bedtime, our PDA children and teens are still perceiving danger. The subconscious perception of losses of autonomy and equality causes the same response in the nervous system. This accumulates and can result in disabling a PDA child or teen from accessing sleep.

As parents, what can we do to help our sleepless PDAers?

Over the long term, my nervous-system and accommodation-first approach is designed to bring down the cumulative nervous system stress that impacts sleep. I teach this in the Paradigm Shift Program™ (our next cohort begins in January 2025, if you would like to join the waitlist).

But you may also be wondering what to do in the moment when the sleeplessness hits and your PDA teen or child seems to be in a cognitive loop, resisting sleep.

And so I want to share a story from one of our brilliant coaches, Donna Georgen, who has raised two PDA daughters, now 20 and 26 years old.

The story illustrates a creative use of 3 of the 12 accommodations we teach: Equality (allowing the PDAer to be ‘above’ someone or something – in this case sleep!), Humor, and Playfulness to help her PDA daughter sleep.

I hope you enjoy the story as much as I did.

Warmly, 

Casey

PS - If it's of interest, Donna has one-on-one coaching availability. She can support parents with PDA children of any age, and specializes in helping parents of teens, tweens, and young adults. You can learn more here.

Mom, I Can’t Sleep

It was 2 a.m. when my PDA teenage daughter shook my shoulder.

“Mom, I can’t sleep.”

A few seconds passed with no response from me.

Then I heard her say, “MOM, I CAN’T SLEEP! I’m going for a walk.”

I lay there, eyes closed, trying to gain some mental clarity. I searched for words that wouldn’t activate her and, as importantly, the right energy to put behind those words. 

I thought to myself:

Should I use the parenting approach that feels natural in response to being woken up in the middle of the night?

The one that my parents and experts had taught me as the best way to handle this situation? 

Should I correct her? Set strict boundaries? “Make her sleep,” like some had suggested?

Would it finally work this time? 

I scanned my thoughts. Past attempts at “making” my PDA daughter sleep looked like the following:

Me, confident in my position as the authority in the home stating, “It’s 2 a.m., snowing outside and below zero degrees. You are not going for a walk. You need to go back to bed.” 

“Mom, I don’t care that it’s cold outside.”

“Well, I do. It’s 2 a.m. It’s not safe out there.”

“It’s not safe in here! I’m going!”

“What if you watch tv for a little while. Or just close your eyes and focus on relaxing each part of your body.”

“That is so stupid! This is all your fault!” 

Then she would rip the blankets off me.

Regardless of any logical suggestions I made at this point – and no matter how gentle, quiet and loving they were – the outcome was always the same.

She would scream something along the lines of “That’s so stupid! I hate you!!”  

She would also hurl things at me and if I tried to get between her and the door she would try to physically push past me. Focused, determined, and relentless, there was no chance of calming her down then. It would be like trying to get lava back into an erupting volcano.

No, that would not be the approach I would use this time. I thought to myself.

I reminded myself that my daughter is hurting, that she isn’t choosing to behave this way, and that her mind and body are currently in survival mode.

I repeated a mantra to myself, “You can do this Donna. You can do this Donna. You can do this…”  

As inconvenient as it was going to be (and with every fiber of my being wanting only to go back to sleep), I knew what needed to happen. 

I opened my eyes, sat up and said, “Yeah, I was having trouble sleeping too. Who needs sleep? It’s so overrated. I’m going to make brownies and watch TV.” 

Although my daughter remained in a state of agitation, she followed me into the kitchen, monologuing about her inability to sleep and sharing all the details of a show I had already heard dozens of times before.

I focused on sharing my “go-to replies” with a renewed sense interest, “Oh really? Yeah. I agree. Oh my gosh. Right? Yessss. They did that? It’s cool how you can remember so much.”

Within a couple hours, my daughter and I sat relaxed in front of the TV. I started to notice her getting drowsy.

There was no need for me to suggest she try going to bed. No need for me to suggest anything, really. I brought her favorite blanket to the couch and eventually, she drifted off to sleep. 

This sleepless phase remained for several more nights, so our routine continued.

Each night required less TV time than the previous one for my daughter to drift into a quiet sleep.

Before long, she was back to a routine of sleeping through the night, and blessedly, so was I.

Donna Georgen